A 100-year-old theater in Argentina was transformed into world's most incredible bookstore

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Galio/Wikimedia Commons

Signs of the building's former life are unmistakable.

Shakespeare wrote that "All the world's a stage," but this bookstore actually was a stage once.

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El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires, Argentina, started out as a theater in 1919. It had a brief stint as a cinema before architect Fernando Manzone transformed it into the stunning bookstore it is today in 2000.

Now, people come from all over the world to peruse its dramatically-lit shelves.